


Sick Day

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Illustrations, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sickfic, The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: Martin doesn’t take a lot of sick days. He doesn’t get sick often, which he’s always been grateful for. It’s absolutely miserable. The worry over being paid less when he’s already subsisting on a shoestring budget, the guilt of leaving his coworkers in the lurch, knowing that one of them would have to cover for his shift and lose a precious rest day or work for over twelve hours in one day, the anxiety that his manager might think less of him, might think of his name first if they’re told that the store needs to get rid of unessential personnel…Yeah, he doesn’t miss working in retail. But all of that isn’t even getting into the misery of being sick itself.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 55
Kudos: 377





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for TMAHC week
> 
> Sickfic ♢ Misunderstanding

Martin doesn’t take a lot of sick days. He doesn’t _get_ sick often, which he’s always been grateful for. It’s absolutely miserable. The worry over being paid less when he’s already subsisting on a shoestring budget, the guilt of leaving his coworkers in the lurch, knowing that one of them would have to cover for his shift and lose a precious rest day or work for over twelve hours in one day, the anxiety that his manager might think less of him, might think of his name first if they’re told that the store needs to get rid of unessential personnel… 

Yeah, he doesn’t miss working in retail. But all of that isn’t even getting into the misery of being sick itself. 

Martin doesn’t get sick often, and as a consequence, he doesn’t take a lot of sick days. But when he does get sick, well… if it isn’t more than just a sore throat or a persistent cough or clogged nose… he sort of has to, doesn’t he? He doesn’t want to be that arsehole that gets the whole office sick because he couldn’t stomach the idea of taking a few days off. 

He still doesn’t _like_ it, though. Over a decade of being met with disgruntled sighs and ‘are you _sure_ you can’t come in?’ from his managers the few times he did call in sick, of the gnawing worry of getting into trouble or being a burden… it’s all sort of sunk into him. Like a stain that won’t come out no matter how hard you scrub. 

He has to fight against that instinct. Those worries are for another Martin, from another life. He’s not going to get fired from his job, now. He literally _can’t_ be fired, even. It’s a bit of a problem. If he’s sick, he’s sick. He might as well not come in. He doesn’t want to get Jon and all the others sick, right? The mood in the Archives is miserable and tense enough as it is. 

The image of Jon curled up, feeling as miserable as Martin does right now, is what clinches it for him. Jon _is_ the type to come into work even while sick. Not because he’s inconsiderate, exactly… just because it seems like he literally doesn’t know how to relax. 

He fumbles for his phone on the nightstand. His _bones_ feel heavier, somehow, and the idea of actually sitting up to search more carefully makes him want to whimper and hide underneath his sheets. He finds it. He squints his eyes open, which feel dry and gritty, as if he hasn’t slept at all. He swallows, and he imagines that it feels exactly like what trying to swallow a handful of gravel, twigs, and shards of glass would feel like. The idea of talking while his throat hurts so much is… no. Just no. 

He sends off a quick and clumsy text to Jon saying that he’s sick and he won’t be coming in today, and then gets to work on falling asleep again. The less time he has to spend conscious while he feels this bad, the better. 

Martin wakes up abruptly to the dull clatter of something heavy falling over somewhere in his flat. He blinks, feeling like his head is stuffed full of cotton. Slow, confused. What’s going on? How long was he asleep? Looking at his clock, it seems that he’s been asleep for… an hour or two? God, it feels like he just blinked for a moment. He doesn’t feel any more rested. 

What had that sound been? 

Footsteps. Inside of his flat. Sounding like whoever it is is trying to be quiet, but they’re stepping on every single creaky floorboard Martin owns. 

Adrenaline rushes through him, and he finally finds the strength to sit up. He feels dizzy with it, and he almost falls out of the damned bed, but there’s _someone in his flat holy fuck--_

“Martin!” the intruder says, like they’re trying to shout and whisper at the same time, and Martin stares at them wide eyed from where he’s standing next to his bed, leaning heavily against the nearest wall to keep his balance. 

It’s Jon, looking particularly wild eyed and holding a bat. 

“What?” he croaks. Is this one of those weird, vivid fever dreams? 

“Oh thank god, you’re alright,” he says, coming closer. He looks very real as he looks furtively around Martin’s cramped bedroom, like there’s someone else crouching just out of sight. He reaches out and squeezes a hand on Martin’s shoulder. 

This really isn’t clearing whether or not this is a fever dream up for him. 

“What are you… Jon? I don’t understand,” he says, and yep, talking hurts exactly as much as he was afraid it would. “Why are you here?” 

“I got your text,” he says. 

That explains absolutely nothing. Martin picks up his phone and opens it, wondering if maybe in his sick, groggy delirium that he texted Jon something completely different from what he thought he had. 

But nope. It’s just his, in hindsight, short, terse explanation that he’s not feeling well and that he won’t be coming into work today… 

Followed by about a _dozen_ text messages from Jon asking for clarification, elaboration, what’s wrong with him, is he okay, why isn’t he answering Jon’s calls, can he at least send a picture of himself? Numbly, Martin checks. Eighteen missed calls. Seven voice messages. 

He looks up at Jon, wide eyed. It seems that while Martin has been scrolling through his phone and seeing the many, many texts and calls that he apparently slept right through, Jon has been taking in Martin’s room. The tissues by his bed, the glass of water, the aspirin. 

“Oh,” Jon says. “You were… actually sick.” 

Mutely, Martin nods. 

Jon hides the bat behind his back, as if suddenly embarrassed by it. 

“Well,” he says, “that’s, ah, that’s good. I mean, not good that you’re sick, but-- I’m glad it wasn’t something else. Something worse. Um, excuse me--” 

Martin reaches out and takes Jon’s arm. “Jon,” he says, “did you break into my flat with a _baseball bat_ because you thought Prentiss was holding me hostage again?” 

Martin’s pretty sure that if Jon’s skin wasn’t so dark, his face would currently be bright red with the way he’s currently looking at anywhere but Martin’s face. “Of course not,” he blusters. “Prentiss has been dead for years now, I know that. I was just… worried, _justifiably_ worried, that it might be a situation _similar_ to the Prentiss incident. Perhaps Jude Perry or Mike Crew had decided to… for some reason… well it _sounds_ unreasonable now that I say it out loud, but it did actually happen once before! It would be utterly foolish of me to not at least check that you were alright.” 

Jon had looked ready to try his best to throw Martin over his shoulder and run off only a few moments ago. An absolutely impossible feat, considering their respective builds, but… he hadn’t just been _checking._

Martin feels pretty damned stupid for just sending Jon a text that he’s sick and can’t come in today, and then passing out and leaving him to spiral with worry, but more than that, more than anything else-- 

“And you thought you were going to take out Jude Perry with a _bat?”_ he asks him. He puts a hand over his mouth to hide the slowly growing smile that he can’t quite suppress. 

He feels like utter shit, physically. But Jon, Jon had come to see if he was alright, if he was safe. He’d come running without waiting a single day, so he could, what? Scare off a literal monster with a piece of wood? Because Martin hadn’t answered his phone calls. Because it had been suspicious, and he hadn’t been willing to take the risk. 

It’s a far, far cry from no one coming to see if something weird was going on after two weeks of nothing but terse text messages. He swallows, and his throat hurts and his eyes sting and something inside of his chest aches, and it isn’t quite because he’s sick. 

“I couldn’t very well take an axe with me on the tube,” he mutters defensively. 

“Of course,” he rasps, feeling terribly soft. He feels like warmed over garbage right now, but he’s going to keep this memory, and he’s going to turn it over and over again in his mind like a round and shiny stone found at the beach later, when he’s feeling better. 

Then he quite ruins the moment with an explosive sneeze. 

“Oh!” Jon says. “Bless you. Martin, lie down-- I should’ve brought a thermos instead of a weapon, perhaps-- come on--” 

Martin isn’t used to being sick, or taking days off, or… being the one who’s taken care of. He doesn’t quite know how to do it, how to accept it graciously. He keeps itching to jump out of the bed and go and get Jon a drink or something. 

He swallows the urge down, and lets Jon usher him into bed. Lets Jon go and make him a warm cup of tea with some honey in it. 

Martin is covered in stains and worries and anxieties that aren’t really relevant any longer. That he always has to wake up and be okay and go into work and be the one who takes care. That he can’t ever rest. It’s hard to shake any of those habits. But… it’s nice. Almost uncomfortable with how unfamiliar it is, but _nice._ The consideration, the care. 

It’s always like that, with Jon. He doesn’t go out of his way to show that he cares. It doesn’t really seem to occur to him to do so. Instead, you stumble across it by accident, and you see that he’s cared about you all along, and you just haven’t seen it until now. But it’s been there all along. Jon’s been willing to interrupt his workday and break into Martin’s flat and bring a baseball bat with him all along, and Martin just hasn’t gotten to see that until now. 

“Two sugars, right?” he asks, coming into the bedroom. 

“Yeah,” Martin says quietly, so that the word will be small enough not to dig into the swollen edges of his throat on its way out. Jon had been paying attention all along. 

Closing his eyes, he lets himself have a sick day. 

(He can’t wait to listen to those voice messages.) 

**Author's Note:**

> The illustration was done by [beansmakesart!](https://beansmakesart.tumblr.com/) Check their stuff out!


End file.
